Belarus not coming to colonise Zimbabwe

BELARUSIAN leader Alexander Lukashenko has assured Zimbabwe that he has genuine intentions of building a strong relationship where both countries benefit .

Lukashenko who is currently in Zimbabwe for a three day state visit was speaking during an agreements signing ceremony at State house in Harare Tuesday.

He dismissed colonial tendencies and said the future belongs to Africa.

"There is no future without Africa. It has necessary human and natural resources, the world cannot survive without Africa and we come to Africa as friends, we come here to our brothers and whoever we met in Africa, we have very good friendly relations with them.

"I would like to emphasise that in coming to Africa, we bring peace, we bring science and technology, we are not utilising colonial style, we are not here to do that.

"We are here to train the specialists to help you achieve for the progress of your economies and please be mindful that if you balance the price and quality of goods," Lukashenko said.

Lukashenko's counterpart Mnangagwa also added that the relations are equally  benefitting both countries, not only one.

"We will embrace Belarus and any other country which is willing to relate to us but not in the perception of horse and rider, no, either  we are horses or we are all riders.

"This is how we look at relations and I am very happy that from the first day I met my brother Lukashenko we have similar chemistry in terms of looking at how to develop our respective countries on the basis of our domestic resources as well as cooperation of the countries which have no intentions of dominating us.

"That is Zimbabwe and this is our philosophy," Mnangagwa said.

Meanwhile Belarus has been given a green-light to supply Zimbabwe with farm equipment and machines to Zimbabwe.